His emergence as a director is considered to be his 1958 film La sfida (The Challenge), based on the story of Camorra boss Pasquale Simonetti, known as Pasquale ‘e Nola, and Pupetta Maresca.[7] The realist nature of this film caused a stir in alluding to mafia control of the government. Of the film, Rosi himself said, “A director makes his first film with passion and without regard for what has gone before”. But David Shipman comments “… but this is in fact a reworking of La Terra Trema, with the Visconti arias replaced by Zavattini‘s naturalism.”[8]

The following year he directed The Magliari (“I magliari”), in which the main character, an Italian immigrant in Germany, travels between Hamburg and Hanover and clashes with a Neapalitanmafioso boss over control the fabric market. Shipman writes:

I magliari (1959) also concerns racketeers, and they are rival con-men (Alberto Sordi, Renato Salvatori) preying on their compatriots, immigrant workers in Germany. Sordi, like the protagonist in La sfida, manages to antagonise his colleagues more than his rivals – and this was to be a continuing theme in Rosi’s films. For the moment it means that both films end dispiritedly, and they are further weakened by an uncertain grasp of narrative – though that is partly hidden in the vigorous handling of individual scenes and the photography of Gianni Di Venanzo.[8]

In 1963 he directed Rod Steiger in the film Hands over the City (“Le mani sulla città”), in which he courageously denounced the collusion between the various government departments and the crooked urban reconstruction programmes in Naples. The film was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. The film, together with Salvatore Giuliano, is generally considered the first of his films concerning political issues, later to be expressed in the flexible and spontaneous acting of Gian Maria Volonté. Rosi himself explained the film’s purpose: “What interests me passionately is how a character behaves in the relation to the collectivity of society. I’m not making a study of character but of society. To understand what a man is like in his private drama you must begin to understand him in his public life”.[8]

In The Moment of Truth (“Il momento della verità”, 1965), Rosi changed what was planned as a documentary about Spain in to a film about bullfighter Miguel Marco Miguelin. Shipman comments: “The wide screen and colour footage of the corrida were incomparably superior to those seen outside Spain hitherto.”[8]

His 1970 film Many Wars Ago (“Uomini contro”) dealt with the absurdity of war in the context of the Trentino Front of 1916–17 during World War One, where Italian army officers demanded far too much of their men. It was based on the novel Un anno sull’altopiano by Emilio Lussu.[5][11][12][13] The lead is played by Mark Frechette and the cost of the film was such that Rosi needed to secure Yugoslavian collaboration. Shipman writes: “The Alpine battlefield has been imaginatively and bloodily re-created, and photographed in steely colours by Pasqualino De Santis, but Rosi’s urge to say something important – doubtless intense after the last two films – resulted only in cliché: that military men are fanatics and war is hell.”[8]

The years 1972 to 1976 cemented Rosi’s reputation internationally as a director who dealt with controversial subjects such as the mysterious death of oil magnate Enrico Mattei (The Mattei Affair, 1972, which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival);[6] the political machinations around gangster Lucky Luciano (Lucky Luciano, 1974),[14] and corruption in the judiciary, Illustrious Corpses (“Cadaveri Eccellenti”, 1976).[6] During the preparation of The Mattei Affair Rosi was in contact with Mauro De Mauro, the Sicilian journalist murdered in mysterious circumstances for reasons which, it is suspected, included an investigation on behalf of Rosi, into the death of the president of the Italian state-owned oil and gas conglomerate Eni.[6]

Lucky Luciano (1973) starred Gian Maria Volonté with Steiger in a sub-plot about another dubious Italo-American. Edmond O’Brien featured a UN man. Norman Mailer described the film as “the most careful, the most thoughtful, the truest, and the most sensitive to the paradoxes to a society of crime”.[8]

In 1976 came the remarkable success Illustrious Corpses (“Cadaveri eccellenti”), based on the novel Equal Danger by Leonardo Sciascia, with Lino Ventura. The film is praised highly by Shipman, who describes it as: “a film so rich, so powerful and so absorbing that it leaves the spectator breathless. … This is a film, rare in the history of cinema, in which location – as opposed to decor – is a character in its own right, commenting on the action.” Writing in The Observer, Russell Davies said, “Few directors select their shots with such flamboyant intelligence as this”.[8]

In 1979 Rosi directed Christ Stopped at Eboli, based on the memoir of the same name by Carlo Levi, again with Volonté as the protagonist. It won the Golden Prize at the 11th Moscow International Film Festival[15] and was to win BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1983.[16] Rosi had been invited by the state-owned television service RAI to select a subject for filming, and the four-part television programme was cut into a 141-minute feature film which he described as “a journey through my own conscience”. Shipman writes, “the film retains all the mystery of Rosi’s best work – an enquiry where at least half the answers are withheld. In this enquiry there is a respect for the historical process, but the usual magisterial blend of art and dialectic is softened by a sympathy much deeper than that of Il Momento Della Verità. The occasional self-conscious shot that we associate with peasantry cannot mar it.”[8]

His last film as director was 1997’s The Truce, based on holocaust survivor Levi’s memoir, and starring John Turturro. Rosi described the film in a 2008 interview with Variety as being about “the return to life.”[19]

The 58th edition of the Berlin International Film Festival in 2008 played tribute to Rosi by screening 13 films in its Homage section, a feature being reserved for film-makers of outstanding quality and achievement. He received the Honorary Golden Bear for Lifetime Achievement on 14 February 2008, accompanied by the screening of Salvatore Giuliano.

In 2009 he was awarded the Cavaliere della Legion d’Onore, in 2010 the “Golden Halberd” at the Trieste Film Festival and in May 2012 the Board of the Venice Biennale unanimously approved the proposal of its director Alberto Barber, to award Rosi the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at its 69th show. Barber praised Rosi for his “absolute rigor in historic reconstruction, never making any compromises on a political or ethical level, combined with engaging storytelling and splendid visuals.”[19][20]

On 27 October 2010 he became an honorary citizen of Matelica, the birthplace of Enrico Mattei, while in 2013, in the presence of the Italian Minister of Cultural Heritage Massimo Bra, he was given the honorary citizenship of Matera, where he had shot three of his films. In 2014 he took part in the film Born in the USE, co-produced by Renzo Rossellini and directed by Michele Dioma.

In the last part of his life he lived on the Via Gregoriana in Rome near the Spanish Steps. In April 2010 his wife Giancarla Mandelli, died at the Hospital Sant Eugenio, as a result of burns caused by her dress catching fire from a cigarette.

Rosi died, on 10 January 2015, at the age of 92,[6][21] whilst at home, as a result of complications from bronchitis.[19]

A memorial service was held in Rome on 10 January, with a day-long viewing of the body at the Casa del Cinema. Fellow director Giuseppe Tornatore was among many acclaimed Italian film-makers who attended. Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, Rosi’s friend and former classmate, sent white roses.
Italian director Giuseppe Piccioni said Rosi’s work gave Italy “identity and dignity” continuing, “Rosi was one of those artists who lived his work like a mission.”[22]

Rosi’s films, especially those of the 1960s and 1970s, often appear to have political messages. As he matured as a director his film topics became less politically oriented and more angled toward literature. Despite the more traditional slant of his later work, Rosi continued to direct until 1997.

The Variety Movie Guide says of Rosi: “Most films by Francesco Rossi probe well under the surface of people and events to establish a constant link between the legal and the illegal exercise of power.”[14]

In his best films, the director Francesco Rosi … was essentially a crusading, investigative journalist concerned with the corruption and inequalities of the economically depressed Italian south. He believed that “the audience should not be just passive spectators”: he wanted to make people think and question.[6]

Interviewed by The New York Times after Rosi’s death, actor John Turturro who played Primo Levi in Rosi’s last film The Truce, called Rosi “something of a mentor”. He said, “I would never have read all of Primo Levi’s work if not for him. There are a lot of films I never would have otherwise seen… He was a wonderful actor. He helped you physically as an actor. If he had trouble explaining something, he could act it out, and all the actors understood.”[3]